


An Act Too Often Neglected

by Eva



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-28
Updated: 2012-04-29
Packaged: 2017-10-30 05:53:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/328478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eva/pseuds/Eva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>DI Gregory Lestrade is, actually, a silver fox.  And it's not an easy life, by any stretch of the imagination.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Assignment

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the wonderful Mrspeelisreadingthings on Tumblr, who found me the title from "Le Petit Prince." Thank you thank you~!~!

*********

The woman wore black. Expensive black. And she didn’t once look up from her phone. “This way, Detective Inspector,” she said, for all the world as if she were the one who spent nearly every single damned day at New Scotland Yard.

But Greg was content to let her lead, if only to admire the grace with which she navigated the crowded halls, still not lifting her gaze from the tiny screen. And she was reading it, and replying; her thumbs were flying.

“What’s this about?” he tried, rather hopelessly. He was registered, after all, and up to date. The Yard made sure of that. They’d only five weres and were keen to keep them on, especially those that had risen above Constable rank.

She might be a were, actually. Maybe a bat. Greg grinned to himself at the thought. Navigating by the echoes of her own click-clacking fingers. 

“You’re to be tapped for a special position,” she said absently. Greg wondered if she’d written the letter herself.

Tapped for a special position. It wasn’t unusual in private companies and the like. Greg had himself been tapped for special jobs, yes. Special cases. The ones you needed a were for. He didn’t like the thought, though, of being tapped for a “position.” Especially not by higher up.

Especially not when it couldn’t be discussed in the Yard.

They slid into a car--black--together, the woman finally looking up as Greg shut the door and carefully buckled himself in. Her eyes were a startling blue. “You can put the window down if you like,” she said, and Greg bit back his first and second responses--did she think he was a dog? Did she think he was an animal?

“Bit cold for that, isn’t it?” he said instead, with barely a pause. 

She smiled, turning back to her phone and scrolling through her contacts as the car pulled smoothly into traffic. Greg tried to keep an eye on her even as he tried to get a sense of the driver--thick neck, dark hat; the screen was soundproofed. Discreet. He wondered how much of it was for his benefit.

“Yes?” a quiet voice said, and Greg jumped minutely. It took him a moment to realise she’d put the phone on speaker.

“We’re on our way, sir,” the woman said, her voice clipped and efficient. “ETA is ten minutes.”

“Good.” The call ended with a click, and Greg wondered what the hell that had been about. Couldn’t she just as easily have texted?

“He dislikes texting,” the woman said. Her thumbs were flying over the keyboard again. “For future reference.”

Right. That wasn’t ominous at all. Greg stared out the window, barely noticing when he began nervously tapping at his lips, wishing for a pen--or, more honestly, a cigarette--to bite.

“Your stress responses are very human,” she said.

Greg could only gape.

What the fuck were they teaching people these days? Didn’t government types get the brunt of it? Weres are people, too! God, it had made him sick, really it had, to read the sob stories put out in the eighties by rights groups. Sad little girls who were also sad little kittens. The big push to remember that weres are humans first, and cuddly little people-animals second.

He agreed with the first part, anyway. “That’s because I am,” he said curtly, and stared out the window again.

The office building was large and old and fucking empty. Greg’s skin began crawling the second the car turned into the garage; there were no other cars. Not a one. And no homeless persons squatting. Were they still in London, or had they fallen into an underground carpark in Wonderland?

The car pulled to a stop near a bank of lifts, and Greg flinched when the woman unbuckled his seat belt for him. “Three twenty-three,” she said absently, reading her screen. “Go on. He’s expecting you.”

It was worse once he left the car, because now he could smell that the place was used, and often. Yesterday had been rather busy, in fact. But it just happened to be deserted on a Tuesday morning in mid-January when he had an appointment within. 

The lift opened the second he pushed the button, his own reflection staring back at him from between the widening doors.

Three twenty-three was to the left, on his right side, the only door in the long, quiet, plushly carpeted corridor to be open just an inch. There was no name, and the only hints to its occupant a subtle touch of cologne and the soft shuffle of paper. Greg knocked on the rich, heavy wood door.

“Come in,” a man said quietly, lightly, and Greg stepped carefully inside, leaving the door open behind him.

It was a set-up; Greg knew it even as he struggled to push past his own instinct to know the scent and sound of the man before he took in the visual cues. There was a clean, almost spicy scent underneath the rich cologne--subtle enough that he surely shouldn’t be smelling it, let alone the man’s natural odor. No hint of sweat; perfect control. And the measured breath, easy but speeding so very slightly; anticipation? readiness? 

Tall--six foot something, and ginger. Freckled. Greg tried to prioritise his sight. Wearing a suit Greg could never afford, and wearing it as easily as anyone else might wear jeans and a shirt. Slender but not spindly; there was strength there, and when Greg finally met his gaze he could see that there was much more than simple strength. Intelligence and wit, and will enough to use them as hammers.

He took an instinctive step back as the man smiled politely.

“Detective Inspector, thank you so much for coming,” he said, voice dancing over the words with something like sincerity, if sincerity could be edged in condescension.

“Did I have a choice?” Greg asked bluntly. 

“Oh, there is always choice,” the man said, smoothing a hand over the papers on the desk. The room was empty but for the beautiful walnut desk and two chairs on either side, both upholstered in some rich, red-brown fabric. “I think you’ll find, in time, that I will always offer you the best option, however.”

“In time,” Greg repeated.

“Please, take a seat,” the man said, gesturing to the chair on Greg’s side of the desk. “My name is Mycroft Holmes, and I’m afraid you’re about to be seeing quite a bit of my brother.”

“Your--what?” Greg said, searching carefully for a sign of another human in the area, and then for an animal. There was nothing.

“My baby brother, Sherlock,” Mycroft clarified, smiling blandly. “He’s decided to offer his services to the Met, and you will be his liaison.”

Greg shook his head slowly. “No. What? I’m a DI; I don’t babysit--”

“He’s nearing thirty and has finally decided to make something of himself, if not much,” Mycroft interrupted, sighing. “I am not asking you, Inspector. I am informing you. Sherlock will be looking into cases which amuse him, and he will prove helpful, if you can control him. If you can’t, there will still be no way of getting rid of him.”

“But that’s ridiculous!” Greg burst out.

Mycroft smiled again. “It is, isn’t it? But he has researched his options and decided that you, Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade, the only were to reach and hold that rank, are his best option. And he’s right,” he added mildly, coming ‘round the side of the desk. Greg’s skin prickled. “You are the very best--” he paused-- “option.”

Greg shook his head. “I don’t--”

“I didn’t ask your opinion.” Mycroft’s voice was sharp, shockingly cold, and Greg nearly jumped. “Nor do I appreciate argument.”

His throat seemed to close up. Greg wanted to run, the instinctive panic biting hard--fight or flight, yes, thank you--but Mycroft’s gaze caught and held his own, burning the warning into his brain: don’t run, if you don’t want to be chased.

“If I may be permitted to congratulate you on your success,” he continued, soft and conversational once again, a dizzying turnabout. “You have worked very hard and received far less than your due.”

“What?” Greg said helplessly, witlessly. It was like being caught in the beam of a search light. He could do nothing but shake.

“The Metropolitan Police Service’s silver fox,” Mycroft mused, and smiled again. There was a sharp, dangerous edge to it. He moved to stand in front of Greg, too close, his teeth gleaming. “Do you know,” he murmured, leaning even closer, ignoring Greg’s stuttering breath and frantically widened eyes to say into his ear, “my family used to hunt foxes?”

He clicked his teeth together in a sharp bite and Greg exploded into movement, trying to shove him back and turn metaphorical tail and run in the same movement. But his wrist was caught in an iron grip and twisted up behind him as he turned, and Greg felt that near-overwhelming bodily demand to change, to risk whatever damage to himself and his captor in that wild bid for freedom, but Mycroft’s sharp command arrested him and left him hunched and gasping: “Be still, Gregory.”

Mycroft released him and Greg stood up straight again shakily, turning and meeting Mycroft’s gaze with one that he knew was far too wild.

“Do as you will, Detective Inspector,” he said, in a voice too silky to be benign. “I will--contact you when I desire a report.” The nasty little pause to remind Greg that “contact” could as easily be “hunt you down.”

Through the panic clouding his brain, Greg managed to spit out, “Good morning, then,” before turning away. He didn’t want to; Christ, how badly he didn’t want to turn his back, but he’d walked in there a man and he’d leave as one, too.

“Until next time,” Mycroft murmured, and Greg looked back over his shoulder to find the man already around the desk, looking through his papers once again. Then his eyes darted up to meet Greg’s, freezing him in place. The next words spoken as a command: “Take care.”

*********

It wasn’t until he met Sherlock--or, rather, Sherlock swanned into one of his crime scenes, that Greg understood (“I will always offer you the best option”).

Because the little bastard had the nerve, the unmitigated gall, to walk onto Greg’s scene and try to fucking stare him down and issue him commands as if he were the fucking Queen.

It wasn’t until the smug thought--kid’s got nothing on his brother--that Greg understood, and wanted to smack Sherlock so hard his parents would feel it, because by God they deserved it.

“You have a very strong will for a were,” Sherlock finally said, grudgingly. 

“I am rapidly running out of patience,” Greg snapped back.

And yes, he would rather be answering to the git’s brother, who at least worked in the fucking government and in a position high enough that Greg’s answering to him didn’t have to be because he was a were, than to the git dancing about his crime scene. And yes, considering what he’d gleaned from just that initial interview, he had a feeling that anyone, were or not, would have backed down and buckled to his demand. And yes, he was glad he’d taken the time to seek Greg out and--for fuck’s sake, did he really have to be fucking grateful to have been made to roll over on his back for the man? Metaphorically speaking. Fuck.

“Would you shut up?” Sherlock demanded.

Greg’s jaw dropped. “I didn’t--”

“You were thinking!” Sherlock accused, and flounced back towards the corpse.

Weres were said to have--not weaker wills, not really. But less elastic ones, maybe. Once cowed, they tended to stay that way. Animal instinct, people snickered. Not that they were really much better, but the stereotype remained. 

Greg had had more than a few contests of will as a younger man, but those had been fair. Well, honest. Nothing like the trap he’d been forced to walk into by Mycroft Holmes.

And losing your fucking job wasn’t much of a choice. Greg left the room, signaling for Bradstreet to keep an eye on their new consultant, before heading out for some fresh air.

His phone rang as he slumped against a gate, aching for a cigarette, and he dug out to see: Holmes. Well. Think of the devil; of fucking course.

“What?” he snarled.

“How is my brother doing?” Mycroft asked lazily. “Not too disappointed in your refusal to cater to his whims, I trust?”

“Can you call when I’m not on a case?” Greg asked, keeping his voice low and controlled. It ended up sounding merely tight with anger.

“You’re not busy now,” Mycroft said innocently.

Greg’s jaw tightened further. “How the hell would you know?” 

“CCTV camera to your left,” Mycroft said breezily. Greg turned, staring up at the camera that was facing him, and Mycroft said with sardonic cheer, “Hello, Gregory!”

“Are you waving?” Greg asked dully. 

“Mm, no. But--”

The camera moved jerkily, side to side, and Greg closed his eyes tight.

“I’ll let you get back to your scene,” Mycroft continued, and Greg peeked and saw that the camera was stationary again. “The car will be ‘round tomorrow, nine AM sharp. I appreciated how prompt you were last time.”

*********


	2. Mitigating Circumstances

*********

Greg grabbed Sherlock by the shoulder and yanked him out of the room, trying very hard not to swear a blue streak. A few Constables cleared the hall at Greg’s glare, and he turned back to his wayward albatross. “Fucking hell, kid, you can not say that--”

“He’s an idiot!” Sherlock snarled, and Greg slammed him hard against the wall, feeling a sick satisfaction at the way he couldn’t quite hide a wince.

“Gregson is a DI, you tit, and he’s been one longer than me,” he snarled, leaning in close to keep an eye on Sherlock’s expression. “You go and piss him off and I can’t help you, I can’t protect you--”

Sherlock scoffed. “I don’t need--”

“They won’t listen to you!” Greg choked back on a scream of frustration. “You can’t fucking walk in and tell a man how to do his job! You don’t even know how to do the job!”

Sherlock’s mouth opened and Greg squeezed his shoulder warningly.

“No. You don’t know how to maintain a chain of evidence. You don’t know how to observe the rules of a crime scene--fuck, letting you in is bending them already.” Greg closed his eyes and prayed quickly for strength. “The bare minimum of politeness, Sherlock. Don’t call him names. Don’t treat him like he’s an imbecile. If you can’t manage that, get out, and save your appearances for my cases. Understood?”

Sherlock relaxed, going almost boneless, let his eyes fall half-shut. “Understood.”

Greg let out a huff of breath and stepped back, trying to regain his composure. “Christ. Sorry.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Sherlock said, an amused lilt to his voice. “Haven’t gone out recently, have you?”

“Don’t,” Greg warned, turning away.

“They’re supposed to take care of you, you know,” Sherlock called after him. Greg’s jaw felt tight. “Spouses. Wives. They’re supposed to look after you.”

“Don’t--” Greg had to clear his throat. Anger and that old familiar pain had risen up in it. “Don’t talk about what you don’t understand.”

“You can’t pretend you aren’t what you are,” Sherlock said flatly behind him. “Weres have to change. They must. Or they go mad--”

Greg whirled about, feeling the crackle of tension and sick slide of adrenalin in his veins. “I think I know that a bit better than you,” he said, keeping his voice under control by some miracle.

Sherlock was still leaning back, intentionally non-confrontational. “I would help you, if you let me.”

Greg shook his head, a smile twisting his lips. “No thank you. I have no desire to be your pet.”

“Lestrade!” Sherlock said sharply, but Greg made a rude hand gesture and picked up his pace, striding out the door and back onto the street, vacating Gregson’s scene and Sherlock’s toxic atmosphere.

That wasn’t fair, though, and he knew it. Sherlock wasn’t toxic; he was unpleasant, and he was harshly honest where one might prefer a bit of a softer touch. But he had his point, and a valid one.

Weres had to change. Energy for the change built up, and it had to be spent. Unspent, it could cause serious problems, mental or physical, and Greg’s unspent energy generally turned him unstable and violent--stereotypically so. And entirely against his own nature.

But to bring up Annie--

They hadn’t been doing well. They hadn’t been doing well since his promotion. But what was he supposed to do? The promotion was as much as a reward as a challenge, and if he couldn’t make it work, then he’d lose it.

The first were to reach Inspector. The first were to reach Sergeant, even. All of the rest were Constables. All four of them.

There were a few changing stations down the street, but Annie was at her mother’s, anyway. Lestrade caught a cab back to theirs and stripped methodically; changing while wearing anything wasn’t a good idea. Even if the fabric didn’t twist in some horrific way and strangle you, it was hell to get out of later.

Annie, back in the day when they were still talking more often than not, had wanted to install a doggy door for him. The thought had almost made him puke, and he’d requested that she simply leave a window open for him, or a dressing gown and a key in the garden. There was a dressing gown out there now; a long-familiar pattern of behavior.

Changing was important. Changing was necessary. Greg rubbed at his shoulder and tried to ease some of the tension away. Yeah; changing was so important that stress could make it fucking impossible.

Of course he hadn’t changed in almost a month. He had cases; he had responsibilities. He had a wife who was considering an affair, if not already engaging in one. He had Sherlock. He couldn’t think about this now if he wanted anything to happen!

His change was sudden, and rapid, and silvery-dark; fire along his nerves and angry joy singing in his blood. There was that fuzzy wavering, the disconnect and reestablishment of human understanding and control. The glorious rush of it had him running, skipping and jumping in the garden, rolling over and shaking out his fur, feeling the full length of his tail and strength of his legs.

“Ah. Good.”

Greg turned, fur rising and teeth bared, as Sherlock hopped over the gate.

“I was concerned,” he said, and then rolled his eyes. “Something my brother says; forgive me. But I wanted to be sure you’d change.”

Greg stalked to the gate, standing by the door and staring back at Sherlock with ears upright and tail out, long and fluffed.

“Boring,” Sherlock said, and then did something that Greg simply could not tolerate: he reached out and tried to touch him.

Greg, of course, bolted.

“Wait!” Sherlock cried out, already far behind as Greg scrambled up and over the bins, over the gate, and into the alley. He made it around the corner before thought caught back up with him--harder, in this way, to think before reacting--but he shouldn’t leave Sherlock alone at his home. Annie wasn’t there to keep him out; he could go through anything.

It was the hesitation that got him, of course.

If he’d kept running, or if he’d been checking his environment, not his personal horrors, he’d have heard them. As it was, he heard the shot almost at the same moment agony embedded itself in his left hind leg, a thousand screaming, fiery blades burying themselves in his flesh, shockwaves of pain knocking him over and leaving him kicking and shrieking, high, terrified yelps.

Rock salt.

He flipped back onto his feet as dark boots stomped into view, jerky and stutter-y in his flashing, panicky vision. There would be a net; there was always a net--

The edge of it, and Greg was under and around before the two weresnatchers knew what had happened. He shut out the pain best he could, scrambling for the street, for people--

“Gregory!”

The voice was loud, commanding; Greg turned without thought, obeying before he even recognised Mycroft’s voice. There was a car, an open door, and then he was in, whining still, curling up in its lowest, darkest corner and shaking with pain and fear.

He heard the door shut, and looked up at Mycroft’s ashen face.

Rock salt. Embedded in a were’s skin, it prevented the change back to human, because attempting a change with a foreign object inside you could be suicidal. Changing before digestion had been underway for a bit tended to cause internal bruising at best. Most weres learned that lesson well as children.

It was a favourite of ‘snatchers, though. Harsh enough to disorient a were, or even put them into shock, so that they could be abducted and fitted with a more permanent piercing that would prevent changing at all. The salt wounds healed quickly enough; weres healed far more quickly than humans did, especially when they could change. Oftentimes there were no scars left.

And then you could sell a were as a pet--people still did that, God damn them--or murder them, sell their skins and flesh. There was still a strong underground market for were skeletons, sold by morticians and funeral directors who handed grieving relatives ash of another sort.

“Gregory, let me have a look,” Mycroft said, shifting to kneel on the floor. The car had already begun to move, speeding out onto the street. Mycroft reached out and Greg snarled, teeth bare and parted, his vision still flashing and his ears ringing, his nose still full of the scent of his own blood.

“Gregory,” Mycroft snapped, the command back in his voice. Greg whined under the snarl, trying to squirm farther away and yelping as his leg protested.

“Oh, for--” Mycroft cut himself, sitting back and working at his tie, pulling it loose. He wound it into a loose ball and shoved it at Greg’s face, smiling mirthlessly when Greg bit it hard and wouldn’t let go. “Go on, then. Rip it up, and let me see what they’ve done to you.”

Greg did. He tore at it with tooth and claw, feeling an ugly but glorious satisfaction at each purring tear, at the weight of the saliva-drenched tie in his mouth. It was almost enough to distract him from Mycroft’s examination of his wounds.

“Well, if I knew the affect of alcohol on foxes, I’d offer you a drink,” Mycroft said then, and smiled at Greg’s glare. “Oh, come now, Gregory. A little salt isn’t the end of the world.” He reached out and rubbed a fleck of saliva from Greg’s nose, frowning at the tie. “You made quick enough work of that.”

Greg snarled and made another long, obscenely loud rip, nearly tearing the tie in two. Mycroft sighed and shifted, sliding back up into the seat as the car slowed, nearly stopping for a turn. Greg growled when it jerked back into motion, jolting him from his position so that he had to shift to sit more comfortably. It hurt.

“Don’t be a baby,” Mycroft said, shocking enough to Greg, but then he slouched, reaching out to rub Greg’s ears.

There was nowhere to go, and after the first electric jolt of it--someone touching him, touching his ears, for Christ’s sake he was not a pet--after the first reaction of horror and revulsion that he could not indulge, he relaxed into it. It was good. It felt good; it felt like a massage, gentle and kind, and he was tilting his head for more before he could think.

Had Mycroft reacted at all, Greg would have shaken him off and sulked in utter embarrassment, but he didn’t; he stroked along Greg’s skull and scratched lightly under his chin, ghosting his fingers down Greg’s furry throat. Greg’s eyes half-closed in pleasure.

He heard but didn’t really notice Mycroft shifting, sliding down the seat, but that lovely pressure moved to his side, sweeping his fur down and back. His leg still ached--more than ached, it was agonisingly painful, but it was being pushed aside by the unfamiliar but wholly enjoyable sensation of clever fingers teasing at his fur.

Annie used to pet him. Not often, not this confidently, but she had. It seemed like ages ago, though it was only a year or so since things had started to go downhill.

Since she had decided she wanted children, and she didn’t want them to be weres.

The fingers moved a bit too close to his belly and Greg growled, subsiding when they drifted up to his neck again, teasing along the back of his neck and scratching just right.

The car slowed to a stop, and when Mycroft opened the door Greg recognised quickly the scents of his own neighbourhood.

He hesitated. There were a number of factors at play: Sherlock could still be lurking around, Annie could return, the ‘snatchers could still be about, and he was injured. He was also a fox until a good eight hours had gone by and he could even begin to think of changing.

And he wasn’t in danger with Mycroft Holmes.

He looked up at Mycroft, who stared at him until just the point of discomfort, and turned to shut the door. “No, we can’t have your wife worried, can we?” he murmured, and tapped on the window again. Greg settled back down, growling in a low tone as pain flared up his thigh.

After only a moment, Mycroft’s hand was back, smoothing along the ridges of Greg’s skull, and he closed his eyes with a sigh.

*********


	3. For the Grace of God

*********

John Watson had terrified Greg the first time they’d met, after Sherlock’s tete-a-tete with a serial murdering cabbie. Greg could smell it, could feel the low thrum of orange-hot electricity when he drew close.

John Watson was a were, and he would never change again.

“I got shot,” John explained two weeks later, over a few pints. “They dug it out, but I just--” He shook his head. “I couldn’t. I can’t. Psychological trauma, they said, they say, but I just can’t.” He took a long swig of his beer. “I was in therapy for a while; I’m still enrolled, actually. They wanted me to do all these exercises, all these activities designed to drain excess energy while stimulating the desire to change and taking away the fear.”

Greg nodded. “Sounds good,” he ventured.

John snorted. “Yeah, it all sounds good.” He rolled his eyes. “And then you find out it’s mostly jogging and brain scans, and weekly talking sessions with a therapist who, by the way, is not a were.”

“Not a were?” Greg repeated incredulously. “What the hell does he know, then?”

“She, and--” John sighed, looking defeated suddenly. “You’re the only were who’s talked to me since...” He trailed off, looking down at his beer, and Greg became aware that under their small, dingy table, their legs were tangled ‘round one another’s. It was natural for weres to seek comfort in touch, and Greg just knew that if John wasn’t talking to other weres, then he certainly wasn’t sharing space with any.

Uniquely terrifying, was John Watson. Because he couldn’t change, and because he was dangerous enough anyway. Greg knew who had shot Jeff Hope. He couldn’t help thinking of it as knowing who had put him down.

But it was months in, and he hadn’t lost it. He didn’t even seem close to the edge--and he got further from it, to Greg’s senses, the more running around he did with Sherlock Holmes.

“There’s nothing like it,” John told him, eyes bright and distant. “Running along with him. It’s like changing but without, you know, actually doing it.” He focused on Greg then, white-hot energy simmering in a beautiful serenity, some impossible joy that Greg, God help him, would never have to know. “He’s saved my life.”

He could see that.

It didn’t mean that Sherlock was any different, of course. He didn’t tolerate much by way of incursion into his own space, and that meant that Greg, who had survived on increasingly rare nights with his wife and the occasional shoulder-clasping and back-pounding of the Yard, and on memories of that one terrible and beautiful night he’d been shot full of rock salt, was now the target of John’s too often frustrated comfort-seeking. Never in front of his team, and rarely in Sherlock’s line of sight, but often enough that half of Greg’s wardrobe smelled vaguely of John Watson, which was more comforting than he’d ever admit.

Still, it was unnerving to note how Sherlock’s eyes narrowed when John tugged Greg into a hug, or fussed with Greg’s hair, or stood behind him with his hands in Greg’s trouser pockets and breathed on the nape of Greg’s neck.

“He’s studying us,” John whispered to him, and laughed very quietly. “I’m half-friend, half-flatmate, all experiment.”

“Better you than me,” Greg murmured.

But it was one thing to be studied, secretly or overtly, by Sherlock Holmes. It was quite another to be caught out by Annie, tucked up against John’s side on the sofa, not even watching the match playing on the telly.

“And you wonder why I don’t try!” she hissed at him later, when John had gone, concerned and angry and fearful--a heady cocktail of emotions, all exacerbating Greg’s own. And Annie’s own poorly hidden emotional response: a bitter anger coupled with a sick satisfaction, because now she could admit to her own affairs. And, God, there had been several, more than Greg had tried so hard not to know about.

He wouldn’t say anything about it, not even now, because that wouldn’t be fair. He’d thrown everything into his job, into proving that he could be everything the Met needed a were officer to be, and what had that left for Annie?

Her eyes were rimmed with circles, too. Her hair was going grey under the dye, and she was still in her thirties. And she wanted a family that wasn’t second to the job.

But she didn’t want to start it with him.

“I can’t,” she told him, finally. “I don’t want my children to be weres. I don’t want to take the chance.” She wiped at her face, at the tears that were leaking down her cheeks. “I just can’t do it. I can’t.”

“All right,” Greg told her. “It’s all right. Whatever you want to do. It’s fine.”

He knew, then, that it was over. But they hung on through Christmas, until Robert the PE teacher, until Annie was pregnant with Robert’s child. Some things were just too hard to give up on, until they were completely ripped apart.

*********

His phone rang and Greg picked it up without checking, because a week at the seaside with old family friends (who had a private beach and knew how to make things as comfortable as they could be for weres) had a way of relaxing you. “H’lo,” he said, dumping his suitcase out over his bed, glad in a sort of wincing way that Annie was gone, and there was no one to shout at him for the state of the flat.

He’d kept it easily enough, with a bit if refinancing. A small grace in the face of his marriage’s destruction.

“Gregory, good morning,” Mycroft Holmes said after the smallest hesitation. “I trust your holiday was pleasant?”

“What do you want?” Greg asked flatly.

He hadn’t spoken to Mycroft since his divorce--which, admittedly, hadn’t happened all that long ago. He was still wearing his ring, even; he hadn’t felt right without it. He took it off now, though, twirling it between his fingers until it fell to the unmade bed.

They had, at one time, been very nearly friends. They’d managed to have at the very least a coffee break twice a month, and sometimes even lunch or dinner. But more than that, there had just been a sense that, if Greg needed to, he could get a hold of Mycroft. He could rely on him.

But ever since John had arrived on the scene, Mycroft had spoken to him with increasing sparsity. It seemed to him that now the only times Mycroft called or, more rarely, showed up were those times when Greg was up to his ears in some nonsense, unchanged for weeks, ready to spit nails.

“What do you know about Dartmoor, and the Baskerville Research Facility?”

“Not a blasted thing,” Greg said. His voice was steady, but his mind was running through scenarios and possibilities as fast as it could; what was it Mycroft wanted from him, and how could he get out of it?

“Sherlock is there, as is John, investigating a--” Mycroft paused infinitesimally-- “case. Possibly involving a were.”

All the hairs on Greg’s neck were standing on end. “Does that--the were--have anything to do with this Baskerville Facility?”

Mycroft sighed, tiny and soft, and Greg’s throat tightened. “Possibly, yes. Baskerville is a government-sponsored research facility that has, in the past, and may now be conducting research on weres.”

Every muscle in his body had tensed, until he could barely breathe by the time Mycroft finished speaking. There were still horror stories coming out about the research done on weres, and there were his own few and fleeting experiences with doctors who had fancied themselves researchers--something his mum, bless her, had been on the lookout for and protected him from. But the “may now” had him reeling, had a distant ringing sounding in his ears.

“I can’t say that the were has anything to do with the facility, or even that there is a were. There’s a--a story floating around about a large animal, an animal that is too large to be supported by the area, that has attacked people.” Mycroft sounded almost as if he were bracing for impact. “The animal is said to be a large dog. A hound.”

“Fuck you,” Greg said, the words falling out before he had realised he was thinking them.

Mycroft continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “There is no proof of it. There are stories, and accounts told by unreliable individuals; Henry Knight, whose case my brother has taken on, is one such person. He says he saw the creature as a child, that it killed his father, but the autopsy report shows cuts and bruises about the face and neck, not bites. It may in fact be utter nonsense. But--”

He stopped, and Greg clutched the phone so tightly that its casing creaked.

“But John is with him, Gregory, and John is--I know that you and John are close, and I believe he may need your assistance before this is through. Sherlock may, as well.” Mycroft’s voice grew softer. “He relies on you. They both do.”

*********

He didn’t know what he was seeing. It was a dog, wasn’t it? What was it? There were the vaguest suggestions in the swirling fog, and something huge, something terrible, something with gleaming silvery teeth--

“Greg?”

He sat upright in his narrow bed, heart pounding fit to shatter his rib cage, and turned to see John standing just inside the door, yellow light streaming in from the corridor.

He’d spent half the night working with the local bobbies, trying to clean up the mess that was left--and wasn’t that a joke. The crows would end up cleaning up what was left of Dr. Franklin, and whatever other scavengers you found around Baskerville. Christ.

“Greg,” John said again, a bit irritated, as he padded quietly into the room and shut the door. In his socks, then, and pyjamas. Greg shifted to the side and allowed John to slump into his bed, tuck his face into Greg’s neck, and sigh gustily on his sweaty skin.

“He asleep, then?” Greg murmured, shifting again to allow John more space as he wriggled and pushed.

“Soon as his head hit the pillow,” John mumbled. “Me, too. But then I woke up, and... god.”

“All new set of nightmares?”

John let out a tiny huff of a laugh. “Never bored.”

Warm hands pushing their way under his pyjama shirt, leg pushing in between his and Greg sighed loudly, turning onto his back. John grumbled at him and pushed closer, tucking Greg’s limbs into place with sleepy fussiness.

“Mycroft Holmes thinks we’re together,” Greg said suddenly, the realisation blossoming in his brain with the suddenness of a firework. 

John actually laughed aloud, pressing his smile to Greg’s cheek. “Smart boys, our Holmeses. Sherlock asked me what you think of my girlfriends.”

Greg shifted again, and John pressed his cheek to Greg’s chest, listening to his heartbeat. “What must it be like, being all human?”

“Half ice, those two.” John hummed contentedly. “It has to be easier.”

“You think so?” Greg stared up at the ceiling, but John didn’t answer. Had fallen asleep again, in fact, warm and heavy on top of him.

He left early in the morning to get back to London, to make sure everything was all right on his end of things concerning his involvement in a case that was far out of his jurisdiction, while he was still on holiday even. It wouldn’t be a problem, because Mycroft had sent him, but it was important to do it by the rules.

“Holy Christ, you fell into a bucket of paint,” Gregson said as he breezed into the office. “That or someone drugged you and left you on a beach. When did you learn how to take a holiday?”

“Fox, not dog,” he called back. “I can learn new tricks.”

“The hell you can!” Gregson yelled back, and roared with laughter. 

And when checking in with the DCI went well, he went back to his flat, to get his clothes in the washer and his bed made, and perhaps even to have breakfast, because it was apparently a day for miracles.

And then it really was, because Mycroft Holmes was in his flat, and there was a heavy, lovely fresh bread smell from the kitchen. Greg closed the door behind himself and dropped his jacket to the floor, staring at him curiously. “Good morning?”

“Good morning,” Mycroft said softly, standing almost awkwardly, for him, in the narrow hall. “I... I wanted to apologise.”

“Have you been drugged, too?” Greg asked, and caught himself from making another comment when Mycroft visibly flinched. “Oi, what’s this, now? You’re not sorry for anything.” A terrible thought struck him, making his heart clench. “No one’s hurt, are they? That doctor said--”

“No one’s hurt,” Mycroft interrupted, looking almost cross. He passed his hand in front of his face, as if brushing something away. “I just. I sent you into an impossible situation, with full knowledge that I was doing so, and--”

“You’ve been sending me into impossible situations since you tracked me down and threatened me with dogs,” Greg said, taking two steps closer. Mycroft swallowed hard, and Greg took one more step. “I’ve been living an impossible situation since I decided to become a copper, for Christ’s sake, and maybe before that. Don’t apologise to me for what you didn’t do.”

“I sent you to Dartmoor,” Mycroft said. His voice was soft.

“And I’m thanking you,” Greg said, his voice softer. Mycroft looked up in some surprise; there was some shadow in his eyes, and Greg couldn’t read the emotion there. “I was able to help them. And I’m glad to help, rather than wring my hands afterwards. Like you are,” he added pointedly.

“I couldn’t go,” Mycroft whispered.

“Of course you couldn’t.” Greg raked his hand through his hair, frustrated. His skin itched. “You weren’t the one who should’ve gone, anyway. We’re fine, Mycroft. Sherlock, John, and me.”

“Ah, yes,” Mycroft said, smiling suddenly. It was twisted at the corners. “The Three Musketeers.”

“Is that what this is?” Greg demanded. “You want in our club?”

There were few people who could make eye-rolling so infuriatingly classy, and Greg stomped into the kitchen to avoid slapping Mycroft, because he would certainly pay. “You’re tired and you’re overwrought and you’re fucking irritating as hell,” he called over his shoulder, “and I was having a good morning. Get in here and eat something.”

“Taking care of me, are you?” Mycroft asked, following as far as the threshold.

“A turnaround, I know,” Greg shot back, and went still.

*********


	4. A Measure of Comfort

*********

Greg could feel Mycroft’s eyes on the back of his neck, vulnerable in its lack of clothing or fur--his gaze like a warm breath, quick and moist, anticipating the bite. But Greg would bite first.

“You want me,” he said. It sounded terribly loud to his ears, though if Mycroft had coughed he would have missed it. The words, that is; the air was heavy between them, heated, charged with his realisation. 

“I won’t lie,” Mycroft said. His voice was even, his words measured. “But I respect your relationship with John--”

“Do you,” Greg said, low and tight. His mind was whirling with remembered sensation--the dry sweetness of wine when they had dined together, the pleasant awareness of his regard, and the smooth, comforting slide of his hand through fur--God, he remembered that, the dip of those fingers over his belly, how he had resented it then and how he wanted it, now. 

Mycroft sounded cold, and he sounded angry, and underneath that he sounded mortified. “I assure you, nothing I’ve done or ever will do in any way depends on your--” He couldn’t continue, and Greg put his hand on the back of the nearest chair to steady himself.

“I’m not shagging him.” It was all he could think to say; his heart was pounding in his ears and his mouth was dry. Nearly six years now, and how long? How long had Mycroft wanted him; how long had he been so ridiculously fucking miserable and lonely while Mycroft respected the dying throes of his marriage and the misinterpreted nature of his need for John?

“I--” Mycroft sounded lost, and even in his own roiling confusion Greg could appreciate the rarity of the situation.

“You’ve done your research, haven’t you?” he asked, daring to turn now. Mycroft’s expression was blank but for his eyes, which reflected a mixture of thought and emotion Greg couldn’t begin to untangle. “I need him. He needs me. Where else can either of us go for comfort?”

It wasn’t precisely what he’d meant to say, and a truly frightening flash of anger crossed Mycroft’s face before he was stalking to where Greg stood, lips thin and jaw tight. “You couldn’t have come to me?” he asked, and his hand moved so quickly that Greg flinched, thinking for a moment that he was about to be slapped.

But then Mycroft’s hand was raking through his hair, pushing it back and sliding back along his jaw, gentling there, cupping his cheek. Greg’s eyes closed as his thumb brushed across his cheekbone, then swept down to rest over his parted lips. The urge to lick that thumb, to suck it in and know it with tongue and teeth, made him tremble.

“No?” Mycroft whispered, and his voice trembled as well.

Greg opened his eyes, meeting Mycroft’s stunned, desperate gaze. He licked his lips, tasting the pad of Mycroft’s thumb and feeling another surge of heat in his veins, in his belly. “Not comforting in the least,” he whispered, body tingling with each incidental brush of skin.

He had both hands cupping Greg’s face in an instant, standing close enough to kiss, and kiss again, heated, hurried presses of his mouth to Greg’s, overwhelming in their intensity. Greg managed to get his hands up, to grab Mycroft’s shoulders and pull him closer, against his body, trying to offer without words the reassurance that Mycroft needed: that Greg wanted him, and welcomed him.

Then Mycroft was breaking off the kiss, trying and failing to back away as Greg tightened his grip instinctively, sliding his arms around Mycroft’s neck to get a better hold on him. “What?” he panted, searching Mycroft’s wide eyes, noting the pallour of his skin and the two high, bright spots of colour in his cheeks.

“I shouldn’t,” Mycroft said. “I didn’t mean--”

“I will kill you,” Greg said, curling his fingers into Mycroft’s hair and tugging him into another kiss. His other hand he let fall, trailing down Mycroft’s chest until he had a grip on his belt, holding tight. “You started this,” he snarled, and nipped at the fine line of Mycroft’s jaw.

Mycroft pressed a gentler kiss to his neck and rubbed his hands in soothing circles over Greg’s back. With a frustrated whine, Greg tried to fight his natural inclination to sink into it, to revel in the comfort offered and let himself lay heavily on Mycroft, but he couldn’t. He breathed harshly on Mycroft’s neck, absently noting the clean scent of him, under the milder aftershave and sharp scent of sweat.

“I can’t,” Mycroft said softly, simply. “I would ask too much of you.”

Greg managed a snort. “Really? What do you call what you do now?”

His hand pushed through Greg’s hair again, slow and careful, making Greg’s entire body shiver with pleasure. “Imagine what more I could ask, because I would.”

“Imagine I’d like the chance to reciprocate,” Greg snapped, but drowsily, tucking his head more securely under Mycroft’s chin. He rested his own hand under Mycroft’s jacket, over his chest to feel his heartbeat, steady and strong.

“I’m not a nice person,” Mycroft told him gently. It sounded like a warning, as if Greg needed to be warned.

So he answered, “Annie was,” and tried to feel triumphant or guilty at the way Mycroft’s arms tightened around him momentarily. “And you’ve never been nice. Not since I met you.” He leaned back to measure Mycroft’s expression, to let him measure the honesty of Greg’s words. “But you’ve always offered me the better choice. So?”

“When I say not nice,” Mycroft said, his eyes darkening, “I mean cruel.”

“Why should you be special?” Greg asked, and bared his teeth.

“I’m warning you,” Mycroft said, almost helplessly. There seemed to be a wealth of words he was holding back, but Greg suspected they were as spectral as the possibilities Mycroft was bandying about in his head: a thousand futures in which he betrayed Greg in some unforgivable way, when Greg had known too few things that hadn’t been forgiven, even when they shouldn’t have been. Because whatever Mycroft believed, Greg understood cruelty for cruelty’s sake, and cruelty for the sake of kindness.

So he nodded. “About something specific?”

The silence after his question was answer enough. “Do you want me?” Greg asked, letting an edge of exhaustion colour his tone.

“I won’t lie,” Mycroft whispered.

Greg nodded once more. “Some day, you’ll have to offer me a real choice,” he said, and pressed another kiss to Mycroft’s throat.

*********

He was fairly recognisable, thanks to the God damned press conferences they kept forcing him to do, but the members of the Diogenes Club were discreet. Greg followed a young man down one of the long corridors, half-hypnotised by the soft swish of his papered feet, to a room with a few locked wardrobes. 

The attendant waited in the hall while Greg put his clothes and belongings in one of the free drawers and changed, and opened the door again when Greg hit a small bell with his nose. He scooped up the key, numbered 024, and gestured for Greg to leave first.

He hadn’t asked where he might find Mycroft, even in the area of the club where he would have been allowed, because it was easy enough now to track him through the mingling colognes and fine dust, padding his way into one of the larger sitting rooms to see Mycroft sitting in the classic Holmes thinking pose, fingers together and palms apart.

Eyes did flicker up from papers and away from novels as he sauntered through, claws clicking so gently on the hardwood flooring and muffled again by carpet. Mycroft’s head turned slowly; he stared at Greg for a long moment without changing expression.

Greg could see the paper; the headline was clearly visible. He ignored it and the rush of anger it elicited, and sat in front of Mycroft, staring back, and twitched one ear. It was good as a command, because Mycroft shifted to allow Greg to hop up on a small free portion of the chair’s seat, though he was quick to put himself squarely on Mycroft’s lap. He curled up there, his head settled on the armrest, and let his eyes close.

After a moment, possibly after glaring around at anyone who might be looking, Mycroft’s hand stroked gently over the crown of Greg’s head, scratching lightly behind his ears and then smoothing fur back into place. His other hand rested heavily on Greg’s side, cool and still. Greg yawned, snapped his teeth back together, and then nosed at the motionless hand, until Mycroft made a soft huff of amusement and stroked him from head to tail.

He’d meant to stay only a few minutes, then lure Mycroft to some place where they might talk, but Mycroft was into it now, teasing through thick fur to his more sensitive spots and scratching them lightly, making Greg shiver and fall into a half-trance, completely at Mycroft’s mercy. These spots didn’t exist when he was human; they had done more than a little experimentation before coming to that conclusion. So this was a rare treat to have somewhere that wasn’t one of their own homes.

Enough of a treat, enough of a trance, that Greg didn’t protest when Mycroft tucked his hand into the curl of his body and press his palm against Greg’s belly. His fingers combed gently through the softer fur there, almost cold compared to the bright heat of his skin, and Greg growled as quietly as he could. It was an incredibly intimate touch, and one he didn’t often allow, even now.

He did jump up, suddenly, when someone pushed a chair back; it wasn’t particularly loud, but it was jarring enough that Greg became again aware of the relatively public nature of their surroundings. He could feel Mycroft watching him as he leapt easily to the floor, and turned to stare up at him again. When Mycroft rose, Greg turned to lead, heading for the front door and the attendant who held his key.

Mycroft took it from him and they walked together to the changing room, leaving the attendant behind. He opened the door and drawer for Greg, shaking his head at the way Greg had dumped his shirt and suit, and politely turned away while Greg changed.

“How is John?” he asked, when Greg kissed the back of his neck. He turned with the faintest, tiredest smile.

“Seeing his therapist again,” Greg said with a sigh, and met Mycroft’s raised eyebrow with a slight frown. “He’s not in any danger. He’s controlling it. I don’t know how.”

“She thinks his naturally accruing energy is fighting his depression,” Mycroft offered quietly. He folded his hands, stared down at them. “That his body has become accustomed to using that energy for something other than changing, and this is its new outlet.”

“Why are you asking me what you already know?” Greg asked, feeling mildly petulant. 

Mycroft’s lips twitched a bit. “I trust you more than I trust her.”

Greg closed his eyes momentarily; Mycroft never played fair. Not that Greg did, either. It seemed to him that they had only been tied closer together in their grief, and he couldn’t imagine carrying it alone, like John was. Like John had to, because whatever comfort Greg could give him could never be enough.

“Touch me,” he said.

Mycroft looked at him in astonishment.

“You’re tired, you’re sad, and you’re beautiful,” Greg said, taking a step closer. He felt a tiny flash of triumph when Mycroft’s gaze dropped for a moment, a fine edge of lust at last visible in the flick of tongue over lips. “If you don’t want to walk out of here with marks all over your neck, you had better bite first.”

They stared at each other, gauging each other’s interest and patience; tying, as always, in the first, and Greg’s invitation had already given the second away. Slowly, with infinite care, Mycroft took off his jacket and waistcoat and set them aside. He worked his cufflinks loose, setting each with a heavy clink onto the nearest wardrobe. Greg licked his lips and tried not to pounce.

“This is how I bite,” Mycroft said, undoing his tie, and pulling the fabric taut with a snap that made Greg jump. He set that aside and worked his shirt loose, then knelt to remove his shoes. Slow, and careful, and more beautiful than arousing, because Greg could read his exhaustion and grief in the eloquent line of his shoulders. He started forward to help him and was rebuffed with a smile and a quick shake of Mycroft’s head. 

Socks, and trousers, and undershirt, and briefs; all removed and folded and set carefully on the wardrobe. Greg held still, held even his breath, dizzy with lust and affection, palms itching with the need to touch and lips tingling with the need to taste.

At last, Mycroft turned to him and smiled, showing his teeth.

*********


	5. Various Snares

*********

Gregson sat down heavily on the chair in front of Greg’s desk, jolting him from his light doze. “What?” he said, and then, “Shit!” as his coffee tumbled to the floor.

“Smooth,” Gregson said, and laughed at Greg’s glare. 

“Wasting coffee, or causing someone else to waste coffee, is a sin,” Greg said.

Gregson shrugged. “Good thing I’m a cop, not a vicar.” His bright eyes narrowed. “Speaking of sins, stop surreptitiously packing your shite. They’re not getting rid of you.”

“You’re calling the shots now?” Greg asked, pulling out a few crumpled papers from the bin to try to soak up the mess. “Bloody hell, Toby. Give me your jacket; it’s seen worse than this, anyway.”

“They’ve already cleared your team,” Gregson said, ignoring him. “Your Donovan’s about ready to spit nails, too. Seems some people think she was trying to take your wunderkind down a notch or two, by sacrificing her own career.”

Greg stared at him. The papers in his hand started to drip coffee on his shoe. “Wait. We’re cleared?” That meant Sherlock was cleared. The investigation was over.

“You’ll want to talk to her before she and Dimmock end up in a fist fight,” Gregson said, standing up. He smirked down at Greg. “My money’d be on Donovan breaking his face and losing her job after all.”

“Donovan!” Greg shouted past him, and dumped the papers back in the bin. “Get out of here. I’m back on duty, apparently.”

Gregson loitered long enough for Sally to march in, white-lipped and shaking, and pulled the blinds, too. Greg motioned for Sally to shut the door behind her.

“Yes, sir,” she said, her voice a bit choked.

“Don’t get into fights with Dimmock,” Greg said, coming ‘round the side of the desk. “He’s your superior, and he’s a bit of an arsehole.” At that, Sally burst into furious, nearly silent tears, and Greg offered her a box of tissues, saying, “Thank you for not punching my printer.”

“You--” Sally swallowed. “You made Bradstreet buy you a new one. I’m not that stupid.”

“You’re not stupid at all,” Greg said quietly. Sally coughed, blinking hugely to try and stop the tears. “Forgetting the work environment for a moment. How are you?”

Sally shrugged, and smiled helplessly. “I hate him,” she said, and wiped at her face again.

“Dimmock?” Greg asked, surprised.

“Sherlock Holmes,” she said, and took another tissue. “People like that--they don’t die. They don’t give up. They’re always there to say--to say ‘I told you so--’” She stopped and waved her hand, as if to indicate all she couldn’t say.

Greg smiled. “From him to me to you, he told you so.”

Sally laughed and curled her hand over her mouth, looking up to the ceiling. “I just--I hope he was angry, that I didn’t get it. That I thought--that I fell right into the trap. I hope he was cursing just how dumb I am.”

“You’re not,” Greg said again, and finally gave into the impulse to touch her shoulder. Sally sniffed. “All I had was instinct. You had evidence.”

“Fabricated,” she snapped, then looked down at the floor. Her voice grew very soft. “He must have felt so alone.”

“John believed in him,” Greg reminded her.

Sally took a deep breath, and smiled at him, watery and bleak. “When I go to tell him sorry, and he kills me, would you make sure he gets away?”

*********

John was curled up in his bed when Greg got home, but he snapped awake when Greg started to pull the door shut. “No. Get in here.”

“I’m still in this damn suit,” Greg protested, and John was up and tugging at his tie.

“You sent Sally after me,” he accused, pulling the tie loose and dropping it carelessly. “That wasn’t kind.”

“I didn’t send her after you.” Greg fought out of his jacket as John attacked his shirt buttons. “She wanted to say sorry.”

“I wanted to hit her,” John growled.

Greg shrugged. “Maybe she wanted you to.”

“She did.” John started to work on his belt. “Guilt just pouring off of her. I took her to a pub and bought her a drink.”

“You didn’t,” Greg said, and pulled his shirt and undershirt off. 

“Why are you still in your shoes? Of course I did. I’m not unreasonable and I don’t hit girls.” John sat down on the bed and gestured for him to hurry it up. “It wasn’t her fault.”

“Tell that to Dimmock,” Greg said, kneeling to untie his shoes. “He and Anderson fly into a rage at the sight of each other. Sally can’t say much, Sergeant to Inspector.”

“I didn’t think the Met was that strict,” John murmured. “Finally! Get in here.” He pulled Greg’s arm and overbalanced him, so that he sprawled over John, very nearly indecent in just his pants and socks. John was at least wearing a t shirt.

“Not that strict, unless Dimmock decides to make an issue of it,” Greg said honestly as John pushed him around, until they were twisted into a puzzle of intertwined limbs, Greg on top. John was breathing on his neck, and it was only because of Greg’s trust in him that he could--the frustrated, pulsating energy he was emitting made Greg’s skin itch.

“If he does, I’ll punch him,” John grumbled. “Isn’t it bad enough he’s dead? Can we all stop punishing each other? Molly won’t talk to me. Mrs. Hudson cries at the sight of me. Mycroft won’t answer my texts.”

“Why are you texting Mycroft?” Greg asked incredulously.

 “To find out how you’re doing, obviously,” John said, craning his neck so that he could glare at Greg. “You don’t tell me.”

“But--”

“You don’t,” John said again, pressed his teeth to Greg’s pulse point. Predictably, it jumped, and Greg swallowed past his nerves. “Like that. You let me do that, and it bothers you, and you don’t say anything because you’re more worried about me.”

“You lost more--”

“No!” John said, loudly, craning his neck again to glare. “We both lost the same thing. The same person. Sherlock Holmes. And we’re both suffering for it, but neither of us is broken, right? Right?” he asked again, and poked Greg hard in the ribs.

“Ow! What?” Greg said, squirming and finding to his uneasy surprise that he couldn’t quite break free. “Fine! Neither of us is broken!”

“So you change,” John said. Greg went very still. “You do, right? Regularly. Twice a month at least.”

“I do,” Greg said, and swallowed hard again at the narrowing of John’s eyes. “What?”

“Do it,” John said. “Now.”

He had never changed around John. He’d never been a fox around him. It hadn’t seemed fair; it had seemed grossly inappropriate, given John’s situation.

But John was staring at him now, and he was adamant. He let Greg go and sat up to watch him undress the rest of the way, lips thin and tight.

“Change,” John said, and Greg closed his eyes, pushing through his guilt and unease to that bright energy, and he let it go.

It was swift and easy; he hadn’t been lying. He’d spent most of visits to Mycroft as a fox, because he hadn’t wanted to go home human and smelling of lust or sex--or worse, freshly showered from either. John had all but moved into his flat. Greg couldn’t do that to him. John was still a were, and his senses were incredibly acute.

He blinked up at John now, as he struggled between fox and human thought patterns for the usual two or three seconds. John’s eyes were narrowed but his teeth were covered, and his energy hadn’t changed at all. It still wasn’t comforting, but he hadn’t been seeking comfort from John since--

Oh. He understood, quite suddenly.

John slid off the bed to sit cross-legged on the floor. “Come here,” he said, his voice softer, and held out his hands. Greg approached cautiously, ears pricked forward.

When he was close enough to touch, John leaned forward and grabbed him--an easy, not especially tight grip, hands fitting under his forelegs and over his chest. Greg swallowed a growl and a whine and went limp, allowing John to pull him into his lap.

John’s hands were more confident than even Mycroft’s, sweeping along his fur and investigating joints and limbs. Greg did grumble when John turned his face upwards, peering at his eyes and pushing at his teeth. He fought a bit, jerking his head around and trying to push John’s fingers away with his tongue.

“None of that,” John scolded, but almost absentmindedly. He pried Greg’s jaws apart and felt his canines, laughing a bit at Greg’s disgusted, defeated sigh. Then he let go, tracing along Greg’s jaw and up, to pet his ears with his fingertips. Greg licked his teeth and wrinkled his nose.

John started sweeping his hand over Greg’s back again, along the curve of his spine. Greg curled up tight in his lap, hiding his face against John’s warm belly. He tucked his tail in, making himself small, smaller--

“No, don’t do that,” John said, and the sharp, sour scent of his distress grew. Greg did whine, now, because he wasn’t getting this right. He wasn’t fixing it. His energy was a mixed red-orange, volatile and more frightening. 

“Come on.” Greg yelped as John scooped him up and scrambled to his feet, and tossed him onto the bed. He froze, caught between conflicting desires to fall flat and run. Then John was lying on the bed, pulling him into his arms, warm and curled around him and the exact opposite of comforting.

Again, his breath on Greg’s neck, warm and wet. His hand on the delicate, vulnerable stretch of Greg’s belly; the growl rose in his throat and he swallowed it back hard.

This wasn’t how he slept as a fox, all sprawled out along someone’s body. His ears twitched with every one of John’s exhales; he flinched minutely as John shifted, and his leg slid over Greg’s tail.

John was pushing him. Deliberately. Greg tried to lift his head, to look at him, and John shifted again, sliding up put his chin over Greg’s head, forcing him to lay down again on the mattress. His hand rubbed over Greg’s belly and Greg put his paws over his nose.

Bite, or push, or growl, or curl up--

“You’re not doing either of us any favours,” John whispered. His grip tightened. His pain radiated through every point of contact, and Greg could feel it, eating at the edges of his panic. 

He held still.

*********

It took considerably more energy for Greg to change into a human than a fox. That was the way of it for weres: they spent the bulk of their time in their larger form, with the option to sacrifice mass for energy in changing into their smaller form. He hadn’t had the energy to change when John at last fell asleep, having held still for so long, fighting himself into exhaustion. 

The security team was good, and Mycroft was standing at the door when Greg forced himself to walk steadily up the walk, instead of slinking into the more comfortable shadows. Mycroft’s eyes were wide, but he was very calm. “Gregory, please come in,” he said, standing politely to the side.

It was also true that energy accumulated more readily in a were’s smaller form, but Greg had spent nearly all of it in the rather mad run from his flat to Mycroft’s house. He could still smell John’s despair and his own panic, rising in tangible waves from his fur.

It was an ugly scent, one that made him twitch and want to run, or to bite. He started at the sound of his claws clicking on the hardwood floor and flinched when Mycroft shut the door, peering back to find Mycroft watching him expressionlessly.

He clicked along to the study, looking back once or twice to see if Mycroft was following, even though of course he was. He simply couldn’t help it. The realisation of it had him running into the study, claws skittering over the floor, and he was under Mycroft’s desk in a moment.

“Gregory!” Mycroft called after him, and two seconds later, the door swung wide. Greg tensed, peering out from the shadows, and felt both a dark thrill of fear and a fierce, loving jolt of pleasure when Mycroft carefully shut the door behind him.

Trapped.

The study was silent. It was naturally so; the few times Greg had been in there previously, he’d been struck by how hushed it was. Like a library, full of books and files and necessary things, like the heavy wooden desk he hid under now, with one slim laptop and one mobile phone being the only concessions to modern life. Even the lamp was some horrible antique; Greg had thought it something from a movie, early twentieth century.

“Gregory,” Mycroft said again, his voice low but strong. Greg tensed, watching him straighten to his full height and carefully remove his jacket.

Because he was wearing it yet. Of course he was. Probably he’d been working when the call came, that DI Lestrade had crossed the perimeter and he was a fox. He bared his teeth, a low growl burning deep in his throat. 

Always fucking working, and that was just an excuse, and Greg could think up half a dozen more both more and less believable than that, and he knew that Mycroft would accept none of them. Would see through all of them, and demand the truth--if he couldn’t figure it out on his own. Which just meant that there was no reason not to attack.

Mycroft hesitated, mere feet away, and Greg leaped.

*********


	6. A Gift

*********

Greg dashed between Mycroft’s legs, colliding hard with the left before darting to the door, turning and scratching the dark wood with his hind claws. It felt good, the smooth movement of each muscle, unleashed. He turned in time to see Mycroft reel and catch himself, half-turned, eyes wide but not surprised.

“Greg--”

He leaped again, taking a wider circle to get behind Mycroft and snap at his heels, earning a curse and another near-fall; the thud of Mycroft’s foot just in front of Greg’s nose as he caught himself yet again made Greg snarl, made him risk a quick bite at his sock. 

“Don’t--”

Another dash through his legs and at last, at long bloody last, Mycroft Holmes fell, right on his arse in the floor of his study. With a sharp bark of triumph, Greg went for the tie.

“Oh no you don’t--” Mycroft gasped, and caught Greg just his teeth snapped shut on the knot. He rolled over, pulling Greg with him, and lost his grip as Greg writhed and yelped, high-pitched and loud, into his ear.

Greg made it back under the desk, breathing hard and growling now, constantly, low and rumbling. Mycroft sat up on his knees, leaning forward on one hand, peering at Greg. 

“Is this what you want?” he asked, and pulled his tie loose. He tossed the end of it close to the desk, twitched it once invitingly; Greg ignored it. His growl grew louder.

Mycroft smiled thinly, and snapped the tie suddenly so that it hit Greg’s nose.

If he had been human--well, they wouldn’t be in this ridiculous situation, would they? Greg snarled and caught the tie, tearing hard, and was hauled out from under the desk before he could think to let it go. Mycroft caught his leg and Greg barked, loud, snapping his teeth shut just short of Mycroft’s nose. 

It didn’t seem to faze the man at all; he tried to pull Greg closer, and Greg broke free again, turning to dash for the door. Mycroft grabbed his tail, and yanked.

The sound Greg made didn’t sound like it could have come from fox or human, or anything less than a banshee. Mycroft had his hand around his snout in a moment, forcing it shut, and Greg bucked wildly, forgetting for a moment not to kick, not to scratch.

“Honestly--”

Mycroft forced Greg down, onto his side, and half-landed on him, holding him down with his body. Greg kicked wildly, felt his claw snag fabric and tear it, the harsh sound of it just background to Mycroft’s panting breaths, his pounding heart. He let go of Greg’s snout and Greg turned his head, teeth bared, to meet Mycroft’s stare.

Six years had only added to the power of that stare. The cold implacability of it engulfed Greg’s anger and erased even the possibility of resisting, of fighting. He tried to turn away and found he didn’t even dare.

And then Mycroft sat up, letting him go.

For a brief, dizzied moment, Greg considered hiding under the desk again. Then Mycroft’s hand was on the side of his face, carefully smoothing the fur back and scratching lightly under his ear. Greg huffed out a breath and sprawled, paws twitching ever so slightly, as Mycroft swept his hand down over Greg’s side, just forceful enough to make his skin tingle with warmth.

“You’ve ruined my tie and my trousers,” Mycroft said. His voice was gentle and he didn’t falter in stroking Greg’s small, worn-out body. “Perhaps you could do me the favour of explaining why?”

One twitch of his ear. 

Mycroft sighed, and reached out to scratch just along Greg’s jaw. “Shall I tell you?”

That earned a look, and Greg was relieved to see the gentleness extending to Mycroft’s eyes as well. He sat up, fluffing out his tail, and met Mycroft’s kinder gaze.

“Do you think I can’t read you in this body?” Mycroft asked, idly stroking along the definitions of Greg’s skull. “You’re clearly overburdened, and considering you have no cases, having only just returned to active duty--yes, I know that,” he said, smiling when Greg nudged his hand away and stared at him hard. “You didn’t expect that I wouldn’t, surely?”

Greg stood up quickly, darting in close to nip at Mycroft’s shirt buttons, earning himself another grab, twist, and roll--Mycroft’s body heavy and warm on his own, and so incredibly comforting, in a way that John’s hadn’t been for weeks now. Greg wriggled until he could curl up in a loose ball, Mycroft’s hand tucked warmly against his chest.

“Is it that awfully difficult for him?” Mycroft asked in a low voice, nearly a whisper. 

Greg tensed, but Mycroft said nothing else. 

*********

He didn’t remember falling asleep, but he did recall being lifted, limp and too exhausted to protest, and carried with some care out of the study. Now he was warm, almost too warm, and he could smell the warm, piney scent of the fire, crackling to itself in the fireplace.

Mycroft was asleep, hand resting with unconscious heaviness on his side. Greg shifted, licked at the ridge of knuckles, and was both amused and mildly concerned when Mycroft didn’t wake. Exhaustion. More than a bit his fault, he was sure.

He carefully climbed down from Mycroft’s lap, hopping down lightly from the deep leather chair. Mycroft didn’t react; his hand having fallen limply to his lap. The firelight, washing over his features, made him look heartbreakingly young and old by turns as the flames flickered high and low.

Around the sofa and out into the hall, and there he could change, his own energy just enough that he staggered when it was over, exhaustion almost taking him out at the knees. But Greg walked confidently enough through the dark house until he found the loo, and relieved himself before washing hands and face, and then drinking a great deal of water straight from the faucet.

He shivered a bit, staring at his reflection in the harsh electric light. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was seeing. He couldn’t be that old, or that worn.

Mycroft was still in the chair when he returned to the sitting room, but he was no longer sleeping. He’d fallen into the thinking pose, and Greg felt a dull, nagging pain at the sight.

“I’m sorry,” Mycroft said. 

“What for?” Greg asked, moving to stand just to the right of the chair, resting his hand on the back of it. Mycroft didn’t move.

“I expected more of John.” In the chilling silence following that remark, Mycroft did move, looking up at him with a sardonic smile. “And less. I expected him to be more concerned with survival.” He looked back at the fire. “I expected his relationship with you to be enough to see him through.”

Greg petted the nape of Mycroft’s neck and said nothing.

“You have a singular ability to make me feel guilty without irritating me in the process,” Mycroft said.

“I’m not trying,” Greg said, sliding his fingers up into Mycroft’s hair and massaging the back of his skull.

Mycroft sighed and let his head fall, encouraging more touch. “That’s it, then.”

“Hm?”

“You don’t try,” Mycroft said, and reached up to catch his hand. Greg held still as Mycroft stood, and then followed his direction, allowing himself to be tugged into a loose embrace. He sighed, laying his head on Mycroft’s shoulder, staring at the fire.

“He upset you,” Mycroft whispered, nuzzling his face into Greg’s hair lazily. “Yes?”

“It all went wrong,” Greg whispered back, still staring into the fire. “It was right, but it doesn’t work with--without Sherlock.” He swallowed hard. “John needs someone--” He broke off, trying to put into words what he was thinking.

“He needs to be needed,” Mycroft finished, and Greg nodded, rubbing his face against Mycroft’s shoulder. The fabric felt scratchy and impersonal; he pulled back and focused on the buttons of Mycroft’s shirt, carefully unwinding his arms from ‘round Mycroft’s waist to pull them loose.

“Don’t you need him?” Mycroft asked. It was innocent of all emotion save curiosity, but Greg was no fool.

“Not so much,” he said, and smiled as Mycroft pulled him closer, because Greg immediately pushed him back, trying to get his shirt off. “Not when I have you.”

“Sweet,” Mycroft said, and pulled Greg tight to his chest the moment the shirt had fallen free of his arms. Greg nipped at his jawline and smiled brightly at Mycroft’s amused glare, and pressed a gentle, close-mouthed kiss to Mycroft’s twitching lips.

“I feel as if I haven’t seen you in years,” Mycroft confessed in a whisper, his hands sliding up Greg’s back slowly and down again, over the bare skin of his arse. “You are always you, but...”

“I know,” Greg whispered back, and kissed him again, open-mouthed but gentle, warm and wet. 

“It’s a terrible thing to say,” Mycroft breathed as their lips parted again.

“No, I get it,” Greg said, and kissed him again, working on his belt now. Mycroft’s grip tightened, making him shudder pleasantly. “I know.”

“I know,” Mycroft echoed, and kissed him hard.

*********

“Gregory.”

Greg halted, halfway out of the bed, looking back at Mycroft. It was still early, and he couldn’t quite make out the expression on Mycroft’s face in the shadowy room. His voice was soft, a little sad, but there wasn’t much to glean from it, either.

“I can’t do anything for John.”

“I didn’t ask you to,” Greg said, feeling strange. There was some tension here that he couldn’t quite get a handle on, that hadn’t been there before.

Mycroft sat up, reached out, and lay his hand on Greg’s thigh. “There’s a--a rather large operation, an investigation, taking place in my department now.”

“Yes?” Greg said. He settled back without quite meaning to; he hadn’t meant to fall asleep, hadn’t meant to stay. But he was glad he had, fiercely glad. And working against that was the feeling that whatever Mycroft wanted to say now would change that, or perhaps everything.

“More than a few of my people are suspected of having taken Moriarty’s money,” Mycroft said very quietly, and Greg’s blood ran cold.

“What are you telling me? Why are you telling me?” he demanded, and shifted to kneel over Mycroft, straddling his thighs. Mycroft’s face was yet unreadable, but there was something proud and mournful in the tilt of his head.

“I can’t help you yet, but I am trying,” he said, and the roughness of his voice seemed genuine. “I need time yet. I miscalculated.”

“No, you didn’t,” Greg half-growled. “You never do.”

“I’m not omniscient,” Mycroft said dryly, “nor would I wish to be. And madness--psychosis--it doesn’t fall within my experience.”

Greg sat back, putting more pressure on Mycroft’s legs, trapping him. “That’s comforting.”

“What do you really believe of me?” Mycroft asked, but put his hand to Greg’s mouth before he could answer. “No. Listen, please.” His eyes were bright in the dark room. “Keep John safe. Ask anything of me, but keep him safe.”

“What is it you’re not telling me?” Greg asked. He felt as if some great secret had been revealed, that some hidden part of him knew it; his heart was thumping for the joy of it and the blood in his veins was fizzing.

Mycroft leaned forward and kissed him quickly. “Only that which I can’t. That much I promise.”

“What is this?” Greg asked, almost laughing, bringing Mycroft’s hand to his chest, to feel his heart racing. 

Mycroft was smiling now, a desperate, half-frightened sort of smile, but there was triumph in it as well. “That would be telling.”

*********


	7. The Fox Hunt

*********

John was sitting at the table when Greg got back to the flat, nursing a cup of tea in the hazy sunlight. “Afternoon,” he said, smiling a bit at Greg, who had ambled a bit shamefacedly into the kitchen.

“Is it?” Greg asked, and then flinched.

John rolled his eyes and got up, motioning for Greg to sit. “What kind of were is Anthea?” he asked, pouring a cup of coffee as Greg settled uneasily on the chair, and then turned with the same small smile on his face.

“Is she, then?” Greg accepted the mug and strained to get a sense of John’s energy. It was far more subdued than it had been since, well, since the funeral. “I can’t really get a read on her.”

“I didn’t think so the first time we met,” John said. He sat back down and clinked his cup to Greg’s. “But she definitely had an energy about her this time. Must be something small.”

“What--this time?” Greg repeated, his skin prickling. “She was here?”

“In lieu of Mycroft,” John said, and had the temerity to laugh at Greg’s horrified expression. “Oh, stop it. Something had to be done.”

Greg stared down at his coffee, feeling horribly, oppressively human as they sat there, at opposite ends of the table, no contact between them at all.

“For what’s worth, I’m sorry,” John said, his voice low but strong. His foot nudged Greg’s and Greg curled his own around John’s ankle gratefully, looking up at last with a smile.

“Me too,” he said, meeting John’s gaze with relief. It felt like it had been years since the last time they’d been able to look at each other without hiding something, some kind of pain that they were determined not to share, for whatever reason.

“Then we’re fine again, all right?” John asked, smiling suddenly. “I’d hate to test Anthea’s abilities any further. She tries, but she can’t quite pack the same meaning or menace into a sentence.”

“How do you mean?” Greg asked. Their legs were tangled together now, and he felt like he could dare a sip of coffee, and did so. It settled into his stomach not entirely uneasily. He tried a second sip.

“Mycroft texted her an entire lecture, and she read it out to me,” John said, and Greg almost spat out the coffee. “Towards the end of it we were discussing where to put the pointed eyebrow raises.”

“You--” Greg shook his head, trying to muffle his laughter into his cup. “You should play it safer, Dr. Watson.”

“Where would the fun be in that?” John asked, getting up and rinsing out his cup. “I’m headed down to the surgery; get dressed in something of your own and get to the Yard, Detective Inspector.”

“You’re not afraid of his revenge?” Greg asked, watching him walk to the door. 

John looked back at him, a smile around the corners of his mouth. “He won’t do anything to me.” His eyes were soft. “I was Sherlock’s friend, and now I’m yours. Couldn’t be safer if I tried.”

“All two of his weak spots,” Greg joked, but it fell flat, feeling uncomfortably close to true.

*********

He stopped by Sally’s desk first, grimacing at the sight of it: not a stray pen or paper in sight. “Still nothing for us?”

“Nothing yet,” Sally sighed, looking up from her phone. “I think they’re waiting for one of us to ask for reassignment.”

It was very clear in her face that she didn’t want to ask, or be asked, and yet was half-convinced it would happen anyway. Greg swallowed his first and second responses, and settled for a shrug. “Yeah, well, they won’t keep paying us for nothing forever. Suppose I ought to straighten up my desk, too.”

He didn’t have to straighten it up, honestly. That had been done the first week of the investigation into Sherlock Holmes, which was also the investigation into Greg and his team. His office was the neatest it had ever been, possibly neater than when it had been first built.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Greg turned to face DC McFarlane, the newer addition of two to Gregson’s team. “Don’t tell me Toby wants a word; I haven’t had any coffee yet.”

“It’s actually something,” McFarlane hesitated, looking even younger than he usually did, which was saying a lot. He ducked his head. “Can we talk in private, sir?”

Greg tried not to sigh. “Yeah, come on--”

“Not--” McFarlane flinched a bit at his own interruption, but pressed on. “Not here.” His voice dropped. “Somewhere outside, please?”

McFarlane had temporarily hopped to his team during the kidnapping case, Greg remembered, and tried again not to heave a sigh. Whatever he wanted, it was probably best to deal with it now--to explain why he was getting the cold shoulder for a promotion, or being assigned to desk work, or, God forbid, because some of the younger Constables had been trying to do this, why Greg wasn’t accepting anyone new on his team just yet.

“Come on, then,” he said, and motioned for the door. “But you’re driving.”

*********

“Greg, you have to wake up.”

He was cold. Greg shook his head and groaned; it felt like his skull had been packed with sand.

“You have to wake up,” a woman insisted. “We don’t have time.”

“Wha--” Greg gave up halfway through his croaked reply and coughed, his throat dry and cracking and seeming to split in places from the force of each explosive hack. He rolled onto his side, registering the hard, solid cement beneath him.

Fucking freezing.

“Come on,” the woman said again, urgent and not a little irritated. “You can shake this off. You’re not that old yet, are you?” Her hands were bright spots of warmth on his back and shoulder, her scent confused by the remnants of some musky perfume, and Greg finally got his eyes open to look up at her.

Dark hair, green eyes, and a face carved all out of angles. She smiled at him, but that was sharp, too. “Time to move, Detective Inspector Lestrade. Unless you care to stay?”

It was a concrete room, a basement, then, with one high, frosted window and one open door. She’d opened it, Greg knew, and he could smell suddenly that there were traces of people, of human activity, in the corridor beyond. But worse, he could smell the memory of urine and fear, sheer tortured panic, and the clawing and biting and smashing and shrieking was suddenly crashing down on him from all the walls: it was a holding cell for weres, to wait it out until they’d changed, and then--

“Come on,” the woman said again, pulling him to a sitting position. She was strong and wiry, and her airy white dress left nothing to the imagination, and Greg couldn’t think why she was there, why she was here with him in a fucking snatcher’s cell.

His head was still full and confused, and now it was pounding as well, and he pressed his palms to his closed eyes and hissed in pain at the contact. 

“Look, if we had any time at all I’d get a cool washcloth and mop your forehead, but we don’t,” the woman snapped. “I can’t exactly--dammit, fine. Change.”

“Fuck you,” Greg managed to rasp, and tried to push her off. Oh yes. Now it made sense; they were on a schedule, and she was there to hurry his change, so that they could spike him without waiting him out. It could take days of dehydration and starvation to trigger a were’s survival instinct and force a change. He coughed again, feeling like it should be bringing up blood.

“I’m trying to help you,” she said. Greg bared his teeth at her. “Oh, fuck you. It was your Constable who brought you here. McFarlane. He’s been in Moriarty’s pocket for years.”

He’d gotten into the car. Greg’s eyes went wide. He remembered getting into the car, and just as he’d buckled his seatbelt McFarlane had pressed something over his face, over his nose and mouth, fucking hell--

“The Met’s silver fox, spiked,” the woman said, grimacing as she spat out the last word. “Worth a million pounds, and Moriarty’s word is his bond.”

“He’s dead,” Greg croaked, trying to inch away from her. “Suicide. Same as Sherlock.”

The woman grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her, to read the sincerity in her expression. “Even if he is, and you don’t know that, trust me on this--Moriarty isn’t a person. It’s a name. It’s the key to an entire fucking network, which knows all about a certain a government official and his foxy playmate.”

Greg shook his head, even against the bite of her nails. “No. That’s--”

“All it took was one person in Mr. Holmes’ employ to choose money over duty,” the woman said quietly. “That’s all it ever takes.”

Mycroft had said there was an investigation. Greg’s mind whirled. He couldn’t get out of here without changing; he wasn’t even close to over the effects of the drugging, and he had no idea how to get out, and they hadn’t left him his clothes, either. But if this was a trick, if he changed, and she was the spiker--

Just the thought of it, of a needle being shoved into his skin, deep enough to prevent him from changing while they held him down, sedated him, and then cut him open to put a spike somewhere less obvious, somewhere more permanent--

“Give me a reason to trust you,” he said, the words scraping up his throat.

She stared at him for a long moment, then said, “I’m here because I owe Sherlock Holmes a favor.”

They were the only words he hadn’t expected, and the only words he was prepared to trust.

*********

His change was tortuous; between the abuse he’d taken, the stress he was operating under, and the chemical fog still haunting brain and limb, it was a wonder he could change at all. But he did and nearly collapsed as his smaller form tried to handle the effects of the drugging.

“Nothing about this is going to be easy, no,” he heard the woman mutter, and then her arms were around him. Greg tried to growl and bite, but she lifted him easily. “Don’t, all right? Just don’t.”

No pins. She held him close to her chest, her heart beating like a drum to his sensitive ears, and moved quickly to the door, peering out. The corridor was empty and long, the florescent lights flickering over chipped paint and old water stains. There were a few other doors with locks on the outside, but none were actually locked; Greg had been the only inmate that day.

“I’d burn it down,” the woman told him quietly, “but Mycroft would be vexed. And I think I would appreciate his methods a lot more in this situation.”

The farthest door was closed, and that was where the stink of terror was strongest. Greg pressed closer to her body, trying to breathe in only her strong, confident scent. That would be the operating room. 

She moved cautiously along the corridor in the opposite direction, toward two sets of stairs: one that led up to the ground floor, and one that didn’t lead so high, and probably went out to the alley. She crept to that one, her head cocked for the slightest sound from above.

The lock shrieked when she pulled it back and they both froze. “We’re going to run,” she whispered to him. “Stay curled and I’ll try to get us to the river.”

To the river? Greg shivered. If that was the best plan, then it was the only one.

“Stay with me. Follow me close. There’s somewhere we need to go.” She tapped his nose and Greg snapped at her irritably. She glared at him. “You have to do this. John Watson’s life may depend on it.”

Greg’s ears twitched at the mention of John, and he stared up at her. When she fell silent, he nodded his head once.

“Good,” she breathed, and curled one hand over the door’s heavy metal handle. “Good.”

She pulled it hard, and the door screamed in agonisingly loud metal protest--shouts from upstairs and footsteps, running feet--the rancid stench of garbage flooding in--

Her arm tightened around him so hard he yelped as they squeezed through, fighting through a pile of trash bags that had been left in the shallow depression where an overfull bin stood. Greg bared his teeth, adrenalin forcing out more and more of his confusion, bringing an icy clarity to mind and limb. Over her shoulder he could see two men, one blond and the other in a hat, both wearing surgical scrubs, trying to force the door wider.

Then she was free and running, her heels left behind, bare feet slapping on the broken concrete of the alley and her arms tight around him. They were up to the street before the first shot was fired and she veered left, around the edge of the neighbouring building and heading along the street to a bridge, to the river.

Another shot gone wild and Greg was snarling now, digging his claws into her shoulder as he fought to look back, to see where they were. She was fast, but an easy target in the glowing white dress, like a puff of bright fog in the early night hour.

Then she was pulling him up, readying him, and Greg’s legs splayed wide as she threw him over the side of the bridge even as she still ran, and he hit the water hard, kicking hard to get his head up. He was in time to see her leap, to see her change in midair, fighting her way out of the dress with ease, slashing away at the flimsy material with the long, strong claws of a large cat, a lion.

Then she disappeared into the water, and Greg turned his attention back to trying to keep himself afloat.

He was grateful when she resurfaced and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, dragging him along through the icy water to the far shore.

*********


	8. The Empty House

*********

They struggled out onto a dark dock, Greg scrabbling at the pilings and the lion growling in irritation at his still-muddled state. She finally scrambled up herself and lifted him again with forced gentleness, and stood watch for the brief moment she allowed Greg to try and catch his breath, soaked to the bone and shivering in the night air.

They’d escaped cleanly, and Greg struggled to his feet when she nudged him, eager to finish that escape: to get to the Yard, to change, to charge that fucker McFarlane--

Her growl interrupted his train of thought and Greg stared up at her, trying not to cower. She tilted her head, green eyes boring into his own. She’d told him to follow her, he remembered, because--

John! Greg’s hackles rose and he barked sharply, darting restlessly towards the road and weaving back, although he was yet dizzy and trembling. She seemed satisfied with his change of heart and began to lead him slowly through alleys and backroads, pausing now and again to allow him to rest, though he resisted initially--it was only her refusal to move that had him pausing at all in the long journey to Baker Street.

She didn’t lead him to 221, though. They slunk through the shadows at the opposite side of the street, up to the building that had been vacant since the gas explosion had devastated it over a year ago now. There were people there now, though; lights flashing on the street and voices barking orders. Police. Greg almost fell to the ground in relief, but the lion nudged him, pushed him forward and directed him up a staircase that--

This time Greg didn’t move when she nudged him.

The staircase smelled of John, and it smelled of Sherlock Holmes.

“Wait,” the woman whispered, and Greg hadn’t even noticed her changing. She lifted him carefully, pulling him up to her chest before carefully inching up the stairs.

“I don’t have to sit here and listen to this,” someone spat from the first storey, and Greg bared his teeth at the crackling rage in his tone. “If you’re arresting me, then do it!”

“Oh, we’re doing it,” Sally said, and Greg let out a huffed breath in relief. Her voice was calm and easy, although there was a great deal of joy underneath the more professional exterior as she added, “Unless you have anything else to add, Mr. Holmes?”

“No, but thank you, Sergeant Donovan,” Sherlock said. 

Greg twisted in the woman’s arms, trying to break free of her grip and run up the stairs, because he couldn’t--it wasn’t possible. His nose and ears and his very skin were telling him it was true, that Sherlock Holmes was up there, but he couldn’t believe it.

The woman stayed just short of the top of the stairs, listening to the Constables pull their suspect out of the room, and to Sally saying to Sherlock, “You’re sure that--”

“I would hate to jeopardise our new start by interrupting you, Sergeant,” Sherlock said, his voice a bit icy, “but this isn’t yet the time.”

“Oh, good, I was beginning to think you’d forgotten how to be a jerk,” Sally said, and then John was laughing, and Greg very nearly barked--only the woman’s arms squeezing tightly around his chest kept him from announcing his presence. He looked up at her and saw that she was still straining to hear something.

“Has my brother arrived?” Sherlock asked.

John answered from somewhere deeper in the room. “The car is coming around the corner now. But as to what Sally was saying, you are sure?”

“Am I sure?” Sherlock called out, and the woman shifted her grip on Greg, and strode into the room with no shame at all for her nudity.

Greg barely noticed the cries of relief from Sally and John; his attention was focused on Sherlock, real and alive, still in that damn silly coat and smirking in that annoying way of his. But it was tireder; if Greg’s own experiences weren’t colouring his perception, he would say that Sherlock was older, more than a mere year. Thinner. But there was something real, something relieved and quietly happy in his eyes when he met Greg’s stunned gaze.

“Are you all right?” he asked, and Greg wriggled out of the woman’s arms to land heavily on his feet, stumbling just a bit in a way that had Sally moving forward and John calling out in sudden worry. 

“Greg!”

“He’ll be fine,” the woman snapped, and Greg sat down in front of Sherlock, staring up at him and just, for a moment, looking at him. 

Sherlock squatted down, reclaiming Greg’s gaze.. “You are all right, aren’t you?” he asked again, as if he didn’t know. And perhaps he didn’t; perhaps he knew now that people could be all right physically and mentally but not emotionally. Perhaps he knew.

He reached out then, slowly and carefully, and drew his fingers along the fine line of Greg’s skull. Greg closed his eyes and tilted his head into it, and even allowed Sherlock to pick him up, to hug him. Because if he’d been human, he’d be the one pulling Sherlock into a hug.

He was alive. He was alive, and well, and home. They all were.

And quite suddenly Greg was aware of Mycroft, standing just in the doorway to the room.

Mycroft’s face was very still; no emotion flickered over it at all, even though his gaze darted over all the similarly frozen players in the room: Greg, Sherlock, Sally, Sherlock again, John, Greg, and the woman. It was she who spoke first.

“It was nothing we couldn’t--”

The look he shot her was of purest poison and she stopped speaking immediately.

Sherlock started forward, and Mycroft’s eyes--now completely open, revealing a confused mix of emotion and reaction that had Greg curling more tightly in Sherlock’s steady arms--focused on him, on his face.

“You were wrong,” Sherlock said, with no malice.

Mycroft swallowed and bowed his head, whatever challenge he’d been offering defeated. “Yes.”

Then Sherlock stepped closer to his brother and tilted Greg carefully, quirking an eyebrow as Greg looked up at him. Asking him if he wanted to go to Mycroft, Greg realised, and felt a rush of warmth. But he only nodded, and put out his paw to rest on Mycroft’s chest.

Mycroft let out a breath and took him carefully, and Greg could feel the hammering of his pulse in his hands.

“There’s no point without it,” Sherlock said, and Greg felt, rather than saw, Mycroft smile.

*********

Greg underwent a quick flurry of tests before the obvious was announced: he was to rest, and when he could change, he should do so. He would be fine.

And resting was well and good; he lay contentedly in Mycroft’s lap, skilled fingers coaxing a few delightful shivers from his otherwise relaxed body as they scratched and probed through his fur. Sherlock and John were back at Baker Street. Sally was handling the paperwork. Irene Adler--for it had been Irene, and Greg had had some idea that she was dead, but then hadn’t he thought that about Sherlock, too? Anyway, Irene Adler was enjoying the use of Mycroft’s credit card, which had apparently been quite amusing to her, and less so to Mycroft.

Mycroft was reading something on his phone; Greg had been given a few snatches of an explanation here and there, but even as the drug was leaving his system, exhaustion had set in and he had been willing to let it all be explained fully later. So now he waited, dozing, as Mycroft finished whatever business he had to do.

“He faked his suicide. You know that.”

Greg managed a shrug, and yawned hugely.

“It got out of control.” Mycroft shifted, putting the phone down on the small table next to his chair. They were in his study, in front of the warm, low fire.

“I asked him to help me draw Moriarty out. Well.” Mycroft sighed. “I demanded that he do it. After all, it was Sherlock with whom he’d developed an obsession. And I... I fed it. To keep a lead on him.”

Greg opened one eye and looked up at him.

“We had him in custody,” Mycroft explained, stroking over the silky fur on Greg’s side. “But that network of his, well.” Mycroft’s eyes were distant. “Two diplomats and three of our agents, assassinated in the week and a half we held him. All according to the list he gave us, when he warned us of the dangers of holding him. And of disposing of him.”

Greg licked Mycroft’s hand, which had stilled.

“One of those agents was my friend,” Mycroft whispered. After another long moment of silence, he resumed speaking and stroking over Greg’s fur.

“He went to ground after we let him go, which was expected but unacceptable. We couldn’t work to his timeline. Sherlock agreed to take on cases of international importance, to pretend that he was seeking such fame, to draw him out.” Mycroft made a face, remembering, it seemed to Greg, how unhappy and resigned he’d been about it. “He had agreed in advance, had been part of the planning for it. And Moriarty responded, with his key, his program that could flip open doors and crash security at the most secure of sites: oh, what a beautiful little ruse that was. Completely muddied up the field.”

Mycroft’s hand tightened on Greg’s fur momentarily, before relaxing again. “Sherlock couldn’t reach me in time, to explain Moriarty’s game. How Moriarty had threatened not him, but his friends. Mrs. Hudson, John, and you.”

Both of Greg’s eyes were open now, and he stared up at Mycroft intently.

“Three snipers. One for each. Sherlock Holmes must die, or his friends would.” Mycroft shook his head wearily. “He’d already plotted his suicide. He’d drawn Moriarty out, and now he needed to get away from him. Odd, how the destruction of Sherlock Holmes was their shared aim.” Mycroft nodded. “Odd, that. And fitting.”

Greg shook himself hard, and nudged at Mycroft’s hand again. None of this was making any sense at all to him.

“No, I’m sure it doesn’t,” Mycroft agreed, and Greg shot him a sour glare. “It hardly makes sense to me. That was why it took so long for us to figure out how his network worked, and how to bring it down.”

He shifted and Greg shifted, too, to press more warmly against Mycroft’s body, tucking his head under Mycroft’s chin as he sat up and licked at his throat.

“Behave,” Mycroft admonished, and put his hand over the knot of his tie before Greg could start to work on it. “Gregory.”

He jumped down from Mycroft’s lap and stretched, feeling the ache of muscles pushed beyond their limit. It was going to hurt a bit, he knew, but he needed to be human for this. Mycroft needed him to be human for this.

So he changed, electricity dancing along his limbs, leaving a sharper pain behind as he stood, swaying from the effort of it, feeling bruised on the inside. “Christ,” he said, as a sudden, sharp shock of agony seemed to split his skull.

“You’re supposed to be resting,” Mycroft told him, already on his feet, arms circling warmly around Greg’s body.

“Tell me,” Greg said, and pressed his face to Mycroft’s neck. He kissed it once, a gentle press of lips, and said again, “Tell me what this was about.”

“He built his empire through a refined sort of criminal social networking,” Mycroft said, stepping back slowly, drawing Greg with him. They sat down again, but on the sofa, and Mycroft fussed with a throw blanket, carefully tucking it around Greg as they lay down together, snuggling into the cushions. “Just people giving him information, performing tasks as he directed, for money or for fear of reprisal. Blackmail was a specialty of his.”

“He had people in your employ, right?” Greg murmured. His head still ached, and horribly, but he wasn’t going to move it out from under Mycroft’s chin for anything, not even painkillers.

“Yes.” Mycroft sighed. “Four in total. One of whom announced your visit to my home.”

“I thought Moriarty was dead, though.”

“He is.” Mycroft’s fingers moved through his hair and Greg made a deep, rumbling sound in his throat, wanting to arch closer, not daring to move. “But a network that responds to a name needs no body to lead it. Sebastian Moran, James Moriarty’s right hand man, knew at last that Moriarty was gone for good. I suppose a certain amount of time had gone by without contact, signaling so. He wanted revenge on the only Holmes he knew to have survived Moriarty’s plot, and he nearly had it.”

“The Met’s silver fox, spiked,” Greg repeated in a tired whisper.

“Sherlock faked his death to stake out the main players of the network, with help from one of its members: Ms. Irene Adler.” Mycroft sighed again. “I thought her a liability; Sherlock thought her an ally, or so I believed.”

Greg smiled. “He thought her a friend.”

“Yes,” Mycroft acknowledged with only a hint of distaste. “He does.”

“She is,” Greg said. “She saved me, just because of him.”

“She helped him to identify the network’s members, and was able to alert him when the order for your abduction went out in Moriarty’s name.” Mycroft’s arms tightened around Greg. “He decided that she should get you out, and that he would alert Moran to his return, in order to lure him out. He then informed me that I was to have my agents pick up the other members of the network today, which kept me too busy to realise what had happened to you... until my agents informed me that McFarlane had been arrested.”

Greg made a humming noise. “Very neat.”

“You think so?”

Greg kept his eyes shut firmly. “Obviously he couldn’t let you know. You’d try to do something, which would only prove that doing something to me would hurt Mycroft Holmes. Possibly more people than Moriarty’s know you’re more than a minor government official. It would be stupid to prove it, to let more people know how you’re vulnerable.” He paused, listening to Mycroft’s deliberate breathing. “That’s how Moriarty got Sherlock, as you said. You can’t afford that. And, honestly, neither can I.”

“It doesn’t bother you at all, to continue being here with me,” Mycroft whispered.

Greg managed a shrug without moving his head. “Not being here with you isn’t an option. I need you.” He did look up then. “You know that, right?”

“I told Sherlock once that caring isn’t an advantage,” Mycroft said, looking up at the shadowed ceiling.

“That’s the stupidest fucking thing I ever heard,” Greg said, tucking his head back under Mycroft’s chin. He smiled a bit when Mycroft laughed.

“It is, isn’t it?” Mycroft said, soft and wondering.

*********


	9. Epilogue: to the Future

*********

Greg opened one eye as Mycroft got out of bed, sliding out from under the duvet silently and moving to the door. The phone was gone from the nightstand, the dressing gown caught up in transit. Greg yawned, tossed the duvet back, and changed in the faint moonlight that had stolen through the blinds.

He crawled under the blankets still lying over where Mycroft had been sleeping and curled into the warmth still clinging to the sheets, into a loose ball. 

Changing was easier now. He still spent the majority of his time human, but then, the mass differential was fairly large. But it was nice to be able to change, smoothly and for no other reason than the joy of it.

And he could do so here, and in his own flat; the luxury of having two bolt-holes made him wriggle now, stretching out his legs and yawning widely under the pale blue sheet. It was amazing to realise how many years he had spent without the sense of security, of safety, that he had now. He’d thought that was just part of being an adult, or maybe a were.

The door opened again and Greg curled up more tightly, hiding his head under his paws. Mycroft sighed in the silence and padded quietly to the bed, pulling the sheet aside to look down at Greg’s most innocent expression.

“It was only a minute,” he said softly.

Greg rolled onto his back and bared his teeth at him, knowing full well that Mycroft had had about all the sleep he needed.

“You have work in the morning,” Mycroft told him, tapping his left paw. Greg tried to catch his hand, missed, and rolled over again to groom his tail.

“I apologise for waking you up,” Mycroft said, slipping into the bed and curling his body ever so slightly, resting on his side. Greg yawned at him and stretched, and snapped at Mycroft’s hand when he reached out to pet him.

Mycroft tsked at him. “Enough of that,” he said, and poked Greg in the side. Greg yelped and pounced, getting caught firmly in Mycroft’s embrace and snuggling closer happily. He wasn’t able to so easily cuddle when human.

It was so easy, by comparison to anything else in his life, that Greg didn’t entirely trust it--wariness was a part of his makeup, whether by nature or nurture. But he was warm, and Mycroft was petting him with slow, careful strokes, and a heavy lassitude was taking over.

“I have a trip to take tomorrow,” Mycroft murmured, and Greg huffed, not quite sure if he was awake or dreaming. “I should be back by evening, but our dinner...”

The long, warm body along his side, gentle breath on his ear. Greg’s paws twitched.

“...postponed. Thursday, perhaps. I’ve a meeting late...”

He curled up more tightly, a hand scratching lightly over his sternum, and then relaxed again, giving into sleep.

“...yet to take care of, I’m afraid, in Devon...”

Words fading out, but warmth remaining.

*********

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, this was fun.

**Author's Note:**

> So maybe I wasn't done with were-animals. :D ?

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Unlike 10000 Other Foxes, Unlike 10000 other Foxhunters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/359611) by [Glitterish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glitterish/pseuds/Glitterish)




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